


What Could Go Wrong At Comic-Con?

by hell0donnie



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Comic-Con, F/F, Polyamory, polybusters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 21:27:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7986853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hell0donnie/pseuds/hell0donnie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Ghostbusters hit New York Comic-Con, at Patty's request, what could possibly go wrong? Honestly, Patty's starting to wonder when she will ever get a break...</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Could Go Wrong At Comic-Con?

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my wonderful girlfriend (nuclear-over-reaction on Tumblr) for editing this fic. She's an English Lit student, so how could I not use her expertise?  
> My Tumblr is hell0donnie, if you have any fic suggestions or just want a chat.

“Well, Patty, I never realised you were into anime.” Abby mentioned slyly.

 

All four Ghostbusters had just entered New York Comic Con, each looking more…unique than the next. Abby was dressed in her usual plaid button up and a green cardigan, glasses perched on the bridge of her nose and hair pulled in a ponytail. Pretty standard for a convention.

 

Erin seemed to think that she needed to be dressed in loose fitting clothing (although, Patty had commented that they weren’t rock-climbing and she didn’t need to wear something that was double her size), she wore a baggy grey hoodie with the words ‘ghost gals’ sprawled on it, paired stylishly with a shapeless pair of black tracksuit pants. Her hair still as straight as ever, even if Holtzmann liked to joke about how Erin herself wasn’t, with the ginger coming through her attempted brown dye cover-up.

 

Holtzmann had, unsurprisingly, gone for the more zany approach, with a white short-sleeved shirt, a ridiculous looking Christmas tie, a jacket that was more badges and patches than actual denim, and navy blue shorts with little arrows on them, ever so discretely pointing to her crotch. Yet interestingly, Patty was the only one that would struggle to fit in with the general population outside the convention hall.

 

“Abby, I told you, it just so happens that my cousin Andre made me sit and watch all of the Legend of Korra with him. It also just so happens to be the best damn children’s cartoon I have ever seen.” Patty explained indicating at the Korra cosplay she had on.

 

“It ain’t got nothing to do with anime, which I _do not_ watch in case any of y’all start getting ideas.” She directed the last part at one of them in particular.

 

“What?” Holtzmann asked, clearly offended by the implication. “Though, if you must know, the last and _only_ anime I saw was about three years ago. It was recommended to me from a less-than reputable source, and I didn’t actually finish it. Do any of you know about Bible Bla-” Before she could finish the question they heard an excited squeal from Patty.

 

“Do you see this? I mean, holy hell, I knew Janet Varney was gonna be here, but I did not know they were gonna do a Korra reunion panel!” Patty was almost jumping with excitement. Janet Varney, with her Korra voice and pretty, blonde hair…

 

“Janet Varney?” Erin questioned.

 

“A reunion what now?” Abby seemed just as lost.

 

“Do I see what?” Holtzmann exclaimed, having taken in just about none of what Patty had said and facing the opposite way to the sign.

 

“Right, I have some signings and panels I wanna go to before this Korra one at 4pm, so if y’all wanna meet back here” she pointed to the outside of one of the panel rooms, “I think we could make it outta here with plenty of time to get back and order pizza. If any of you wanna join me then I have my phone, but don’t think I’m answering during a panel. Got too much respect for that.”

 

Erin and Abby seemed to agree with meeting outside the panel room later and they all separated off to peruse the surrounding stalls.

 

“Seriously you guys, what is everyone seeing?” Holtzmann asked, turning around to look for the sign, only to be even more confused once she found everyone else had gone. 

 

* * *

 

 

Abby wasn’t one to be enamoured by everyday objects. She liked Erin talking science, Chinese food, Holtz’ remarkable gadgets and Patty’s sincere enthusiasm. Actual things? Inanimate objects that didn’t taste like Won Ton soup or give of minor electric shocks (Holtz _really_ needed to start insulating her wires better)? Not a big fan. But damn it, if she couldn’t help but fall a little bit in love with the tables and tables of comic books, toys and plethora of costume (cosplay, Patty kept insisting on calling it cosplay) items.

 

An overenthusiastic middle-aged man, whom she found out was named Tim, ran the first table she encountered.

 

“You know, I can tell you’re a DC girl. I don’t know what it is about you, but I can just tell.” He mused.

 

“I’m afraid you’re wrong there.”

 

“How so?”

 

“I wasn’t born, nor have I ever lived in Washington.” Abby stated triumphantly.

 

She wasn’t sure what she expected as an appropriate response to this statement, but what _wasn’t_ expected was the laughter that followed. She frowned.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Tim just about choked out, “it’s just that, well, if you knew how funny that was you would be laughing too.”

 

She turned to leave, but not before mumbling, “You know if you wanna get customers, maybe don’t laugh at them first.”

 

“I’m sorry,” luckily his laughter had just about subsided, “that wasn’t professional, it’s just…”

 

“What? It’s just what?” Abby was growing impatient by this point.

 

He held up a Superman comic in one hand, “DC?” and an Iron Man one in the other, “Marvel?”

 

“Ohhh, yep, that was… that was my bad.” She rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly.

 

Realising that maybe laughing at the poor woman wasn’t the best response to the misunderstanding, Tim gave her an apologetic look. Rather than stating the obvious about how she was at Comic Con, he asked, “You want an introduction?”

 

“I dunno, comic books?” Abby seemed a little put off. “I’m not sure I could ever really get into them.”

 

* * *

 

Erin’s stomach had seemed to develop a new kind of hunger at this point. She hadn’t had breakfast and it was quickly approaching midday. After an awful lot of map searching and drifting back and forth, she finally found the food court. And all the soul-destroying, outrageously inflated prices.

 

“Good lord!” She exclaimed having found the extortionate amount a hot dog in this place would cost.

Holtzmann was good at finding the best of the cheaper hot dog stands in New York. Then again, Holtzmann was good at finding terrifyingly large amounts of medical utensils she claimed were, “owed to her” and if ever Erin tried to ask why, she’d simply reply, “they told me I couldn’t say anymore than that” and scuttle away alarmingly fast.

 

She took another look around and came very close to buying an overpriced burrito from a clearly inauthentic looking Mexican stand. She reconsidered when she thought about how Patty found a place surprisingly close to their headquarters, which had the best tacos and burritos in the city.

(“Y’all know about science, but this? It’s just simple math, baby. My uncle’s wife, a born and bred Mexican woman, plus her very own Mexican restaurant literally down the road from us, equals good, cheap food for the Ghostbusters!”)

 

Her face lit up when she saw a Chinese food stand, but was quickly replaced with a grimace when she saw the wonton to soup ratio they were handing out. If she knew one thing, it was that Abby had discovered what the perfect ratio was and now, through the power of impression, so did Erin.

 

“These girls might actually be the death of me.” She muttered clutching her stomach as it made a rather loud rumble.

 

* * *

 

 

Patty had spent a decent part of the day going to signings and panels, just as she intended. However, her favourite part so far had been before comic con, when she had come out in her cosplay to the adoration of the other three Ghostbusters.

It hadn’t been much of a secret that the four women got along very well, very fast, but they were rather glad that the media hadn’t caught up on just how close they all were.

 

“Wow, I mean…just…wow.” Had been Abby’s initial reaction, her mouth dropping open.

 

“I wholeheartedly agree with Abby, you look stunning.” Erin said with a little more composure, but even she had flushed at Patty’s appearance.

 

“Well, Pattycakes, as much as I prefer your birthday suit, I gotta say, I am totally _not_ opposed to this outfit.” Holtzmann proclaimed with a teasing wink.

 

Patty spun around showing off her costume, which was comprised of a light blue vest top, dark blue armbands, brown fabric around her waist that was lined with fur, blue pants and brown boots also lined with fur. But that wasn’t all. She had been growing out her hair for a while now and none of them had figured out why, though they had been guessing (“Is it for a secret haircutting party, where you grow out your hair only to get it cut by the other party guests, namely me?” “No, Holtzy.”), and now it had become clear. Patty had straightened out her hair, it had reached her chin in a stylish bob and she had styled out herself a sweeping fringe.

 

“This hair was a goddamn nightmare to do, so if any of y’all have anything bad to say about it, you better keep it to yourself.” She announced looking at all of them.

 

“Are you kidding me? It looks fantastic!”

 

“Honestly Patty, I don’t think anyone has anything bad to say about it.”

 

“I haven’t seen bangs that good since my Aunt Maura grew her hair out for a sixties themed birthday party!”

 

Patty looked at them shyly and tried to brush off the compliments, but the three other women only praised her more until she had eventually been tackled into a group hug.

 

Reflecting back on that, Patty missed her girls more than anything and decided to go look for them to kill time before her final panel.

 

* * *

 

 

It wasn’t just the yelling that got Patty’s attention, although truth be told, the yelling did help direct her to the situation. She had gone looking for her fellow Ghostbusters and found herself near one of the halls that sold comics and toys and such. What had caught her attention initially was the stream of people that seemed to form a crowd.

 

“Look, if you’re gonna sell C-list superhero figures, you might wanna knock down the price!” Patty heard someone shout and immediately recognised the voice coming from the middle of the crowd.

 

“How dare you! Aquaman is no C-lister, he’s in the Justice League for God’s sake! They’re even coming out with a movie for him!”

 

“Yeah, and you know who else they made a movie for from the Justice League? Green Lantern, that’s who! And we all know how that turned out, _pal_.” Abby cried, waving a plastic figurine of Aquaman in the face of the stall vendor.

 

“Oh come on, that was years ago. _Before_ the reboot!”

 

“You know what was after the reboot? Batman vs. Superman.” There was a gasp from the crowd. “Yeah, that’s right! I went there!”

 

One man in the crowd began to applaud her at that comment.

“Hell yeah! You go, Abby!” He leaned over to Patty, “I taught her so well.”

 

Abby gave him a thumbs up and yelled back, “Thanks, Tim.”

 

“Yeah, right. This has clearly gone too far already.” Patty removed the toy from the other woman’s hand and gave it back to the seller.

 

“Come on, Abs.”

 

Before Abby could respond, Patty grabbed her arm and she was led out of the middle of the crowd and towards the hall’s exit.

 

“Hey, I was bartering!” She claimed, displeased.

 

“You were about to hit that guy over the head with a damn action figure. And this ain’t no bazaar, it’s a convention.” Patty contested.

 

“It was his fault.” Abby muttered back.

 

“I don’t even wanna know what brought you to _that_ conclusion,” came Patty’s exasperated response. “I also don’t wanna know how you know so much about the politics of superheroes, especially when last week you thought Loki was a type of fish.”

 

There weren’t really many ways Abby could have responded. Not that she would’ve been heard anyway, because at that very moment they spotted Erin in her own kind of trouble. The thing with Erin, which she would claim until the end of time, was that she didn’t often go looking for trouble. It just happened to find her. So she might as well embrace it. Or rather, trip and solidly face-plant into it, like she was currently doing.

 

“I’m not saying your costume is terrible,” Patty had to stop herself from immediately slamming her head into a wall after hearing that, of all things, being said at Comic Con. “I’m just saying that it’s not entirely accurate.”

 

“Lord help me…” She muttered, making a bee-line for the woman currently pissing off the bunch of grown men dressed as Ghostbusters.

 

“Nope, we’re done here.” She grabbed Erin’s arm and almost walked off with her, until she decided to turn around and address the four men with a simple, “Y’all look great, don’t worry about her. Ghost-busting is for everybody.”

 

“Hey, come on, I was only giving them some pointers on their outfits,” was Erin’s assertion as she was being dragged away.

 

“Y’all are gonna be the death of me, I swear.”

 

* * *

 

 

Finally, the executive decision had been made to wait in line for the 4pm panel. Abby and Erin tried to counter this decision, until they realised that if they went against Patty (the executive in this situation) they would probably never set foot in Ghostbusters HQ again… or on this plane of existence for that matter.

 

It was a long line, but they were fairly early and people would be going in and out of the room for other panels.

There did seem to be some commotion going on in the line, but Patty did _not_ want to get involved in any more drama.

 

That was until she heard someone say, “I don’t know what it’s about, all I know is there’s someone in there arguing with the panel.”

 

Maybe at this point it wasn’t a big deal to just listen in on a conversation; after all, it didn’t mean she had to get involved.

 

“Dude, I have no clue, it’s like she’s trying to say the science is wrong? I honestly don’t know. I’ll tell you what though, her hair is certainly proving gravity wrong.”

 

Oh _hell_ no.

 

“You two stay here in the line, I’m gonna… I’m gonna pray that what I find in there is not what I think it is.” Patty said to her fellow Ghostbusters.

 

She was getting involved.

 

“Look, I have no problem with faster than light travel! I’m just saying that if Warp 10 is infinite velocity, how is it that in Star Trek Voyager, season 2, episode 15, they discover a way to break Warp 10?” The unmistakable voice of Holtzmann rang out from the room that Patty was peering into.

 

There sat a rather uncomfortable looking panel, who all seemed to squirm at the question.

 

“It’s science fiction, so the audience needs to let their imagination stretch a little further tha-” one of the panelists tried to answer.

 

“Yes, yes, I understand. It’s just that you’re asking the audience to stretch not only their understanding of real science, but also what has been previously established in the show as the science that they use! I mean, for goodness sake, it’s no-” before Holtzmann could continue, she was being yanked away from the microphone, much to the panel’s obvious relief, by Patty.

 

“Let’s go, Holtzy, you’ve hogged the mic enough.” She dragged the engineer to the exit before throwing her into the line with Erin and Abby.

 

“Jeez, Pats, you could’ve gone a little easy with me there, I think you bruised my arm.” Holtzmann rubbed her arm, frowning.

 

“Personally I think you’re right about the Warp 10 thing. I mean it’s just ridiculous to think they can change canon like that.” Erin stated.

 

“I don’t know, think about it, science changes all the time,” started Abby. “There’s so much we don’t understand yet, it makes sense that they bring that to the sho-”

 

“ENOUGH!” Patty yelled. That was it, they had done it, they had actually broken her. “WOULD YOU JUST STOP? I have been waiting for this thing all year and I can’t leave any of you alone for a few hours because you just _have_ to get into trouble! I’m on my own enjoying this place, doing this and that, but as soon- AS SOON- as I wanna share it with y’all, you’re practically tearing this place apart!”

 

“Patty, we didn’t-”

 

“Naw, don’t even bother. I love you guys, but I cannot do this right now.” They all watched her walk away.

 

* * *

 

 

“Holy crap! Korra! Korra, you look so cool!” Patty looked up just in time to see a bunch of kids running towards her.

 

“Oh, hey!” She tried to plaster on a smile as they crashed into her for a hug. There were three of them, all around eight or nine years old.

 

“We’ve been looking for a Korra everywhere!” What looked like the youngest one, said to her. “We saw a Mako, but” she screwed up her face and stuck out her tongue in disgust.

 

Patty chuckled and added, “I gotta agree with you there, girl.” Though, the smile eventually slipped from her face.

 

“What’s wrong, Korra?” The oldest one asked, concerned.

 

“I just had a sucky day,” when the kids looked at her expectantly she continued, “My, uh, team got into a load of trouble and I had to get them outta it, it was… it was not fun.” Patty hung her head trying not to let the tears spill.

 

“Well, think of it like this,” offered the only one who hadn’t spoken yet, “You had to keep fighting evil and get everyone out of trouble even though you knew it’d keep coming. You have faced some pretty horrible stuff and you got really badly hurt, on the inside and outside, but you kept going and eventually you got strong again. You even got stronger!”

 

“I’m not sure this is the same situation.” Patty mumbled.

 

“Why not?” the youngest asked. “I mean, you’ve been hurt before and your friends were always there for you.”

 

“Yeah, your friends… and Asami.” The oldest one added with a wink.

 

“They hurt me too.” Patty answered with a sad smile.

 

“Well, Korra, looks like you gotta let them make it up to you.” Came a voice from behind her. Patty didn’t need to turn around to know who it was, but she turned around anyway to find Abby.

 

“Is that your Asami?” The middle one asked. All the kids giggled and made kiss noises.

 

“You’re darn right I am!” Abby announced wiggling her eyebrows. The kids continued to giggle and made even more kiss noises.

 

“Alright, alright,” Patty laughed, trying to calm down the kids, “what is it, Abs?”

 

“Come see.” She held out her hand and the other woman slowly took it.

 

They walked in silence for a while, until Abby broke it by saying, “You know what lets me know you’re a good person?” Patty looked at her questioningly. “Even when we had hurt you and you were ranting at us,” they stopped, “You still said you love us.”

 

Abby walked up to a staff member outside of a rather familiar room and flashed him a badge that Patty couldn’t quite see. The staff member nodded and they walked in.

 

They were just in time for the 4pm Legend of Korra reunion panel. They went up to the front where Erin was sitting with a load of food from the food court hidden in a bag and three empty seats. She raised a finger to her lips in a ‘shh’ motion and indicated towards the bag. Patty got the message. Then, they took their seats.

 

“Wait. Where’s Hol-” before she could finish her question the panel started.

Patty kept looking around, but she soon started paying attention, as it got fascinating quickly.

 

* * *

 

 

“Alright, lets go to fan questions!”

 

Before she knew what was happening she heard a familiar voice, “Hello esteemed panelists! Holtzmann here, first name Jillian, and I have a question,” Holtzmann pointed directly at Patty, “from Ms. Tolan over there! Patty, Patty, come on up.” She was waving Patty over who was being pushed up by Erin and Abby.

 

Once up there, she froze. What should she say? Patty stared at her well-meaning girlfriends as a cry for help and, realising what was happening, they started clapping. Subsequently, the panel started clapping and soon the whole room was in rapturous applause. It didn’t really help her, but she couldn’t help but smile at the lovely gesture.

 

“Hey y’all,” she started after the clapping died down, “I’m not sure what to say.”

 

“I know I do,” began one of the panelists, a familiar tone falling to Patty’s ears. She looked at the woman in question who had an infectious grin and beautiful blonde hair, “I absolutely _love_ your costume.”

 

Ok, Patty could forgive them for this.


End file.
